Portland’s Cassandra Brown Defeats Gonzaga’s Kevin Pangos in 2015 State Farm 3-Point Shootout
By Mary Harvill
The West Coast Conference was well represented as University of Portland Senior Cassandra Brown went head to head against Gonzaga Senior Kevin Pangos in the final round of the 2015 State Farm 3-Point Shooting Competition in Indianapolis on April 2nd to emerge as the National 3-point Shooting Champion. Pangos finished second overall in the competition.
This means that Cassandra Brown is the very best 3-point shooter in college basketball.
The State Farm College Slam Dunk and 3-point Shooting Competition consists of the nation’s top senior college basketball players, male and female and takes place at the conclusion of the Men’s National Championship tournament. Eight dunkers were invited to the contest along with eight men and eight women 3 point shooters.
Pangos was clearly amused and proud to be defeated by fellow Canadian and West Coast Conference player Brown, who was contacted only days before the event started and asked to participate. Both players finished first in their respective divisions (men’s and women’s). The men’s 3 point shooting contestants were Alex Barlow (Butler), former BYU player Matt Carlino (Marquette), Corey Hawkins (UC Davis), Ryan Boatright (UConn), Darrun Hillard (Villanova), Jordan Sibert (Dayton) and Patrick Connaughton (Notre Dame).
The women’s contestants were Bonnie Samuelson (Stanford), Brittany Hrynko (DePaul), Kelsey Harris (UC Davis), Blake Dietrick (Princeton), Morgan Eye (Missouri), Andrea Hoover (Dayton) and Melissa Dixon (Iowa).
In order to determine who was the best 3-poin shooter in the land, Pangos, the men’s division champion was pitted against Brown, the women’s division champion in a final round shooting head to head. Kevin scored 20 points, while Cassandra just inched past him with 21 points, adding even more meaning to her nickname of “Downtown” Cassandra Brown, though she is mainly known around the Portland campus as “CB”.
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Cassandra amassed an impressive list of accomplishments while at the University of Portland. She was named to the All West Coast Conference Second Team for the 2014-15 season and was a WCC Honorable Mention during the 2013-2014 season. She was ranked 7th in the nation for accurate 3-point shots. During the regular season, she hit 75 3-point shots, the second most in a single season in the history of the University of Portland women’s basketball program. She closes out her career at UP with 1,396 points, ranking 7th on the all-time scoring list for the Pilots.
Enjoy the video of Cassandra’s outstanding performance courtesy of Portland Athletics.
Louisville’s Schoni Schimmel took top honors in the contest last year when she defeated the men’s 3-point champion Brady Heslip from Baylor. The girls are on a roll!
Aw shucks Kevin, you got beat by a girl. There goes your playground cred.